participatory variety selection for enhanced promotion of

Journal of Biology, Agriculture and Healthcare www.iiste.org

ISSN 2224-3208 (Paper) ISSN 2225-093X (Online)

Vol.7, No.24, 2017

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Participatory Variety Selection for Enhanced Promotion of

Improved Sesame varieties: A case for konta District in Southern

Ethiopia

Yasin Goa Genene Gezahagn

Areka Agricultural Research centre, SARI, Ethiopia

Abstract

Participatory varietal selection was conducted in Southern part of Ethiopia to evaluate the performance of sesame

varieties and to identify farmers’ preference and selection criteria in the study site. Six sesame genotypes along

with local check from respective area were evaluated in randomized complete block design with three replications

in 2016/17 main cropping season. Farmers’ evaluation was made at two different stages of the crop, namely at

flowering and at maturity using both direct-matrix and pair-wise ranking methods of selection system. Farmers’

set; stand strength , number of capsule per plant, plant height, disease resistance, shattering resistance, earliness,

seed color and Grain yield as selection criteria to evaluate and identify their preferred varieties. The results of

analysis of variance indicated the existence of highly significant differences among varieties for grain yield at 5%

probability level. The highest mean grain yield was obtained from the genotypes Setiti-1 (783.35 Kg ha-1),

Abasena (756.25kgha-1) and Humera (713 Kg ha -1). Likewise, Setiti-1, Abasena and Humera were identified as

farmers preferred varieties from both pair-wise and direct matrix ranking evaluations. Thus, the varieties Setiti-1,

Abasena and Humera were selected for their performance in the field and from farmers' evaluation perspective.

Therefore, based on the results of present study, Setiti-1, Abasena and Humera can be recommended for cultivation

under konta areas and similar agro ecologies.

Keywords: Direct-matrix ranking, Pair-wise ranking, PVS, Farmers selection criteria, sesame

Introduction

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is one of the oldest culti-vated plants in the world. Neoug (Niger seed), sesame

and linseed covered 2.8%, 2.48% and 1.61% of grain crop area, respectively; and about 1.11%, 1.27% and 0.91%

of the grain production, respectively (CSA, 2009). Ethiopia was the 7th major sesame producing country in the

world in the year 2004 with area coverage 65,000 hectare, production about 49,000 tons and productivity about

479 kg ha-1 and now, Ethiopia is the 4th with area coverage 384,682.79 hectare, production about 327,740.92 tons

and productivity is estimated as 852 kg ha-1 (CSA, 2011/12). Next to coffee, sesame seed is the second largest

export earner for Ethiopia and it is an important cash crop as it has an excellent demand in the international market

and is consumed by existing domestic large and small-scale oil mills (CSA, 2011/12). The Ethiopian government

has indicated that the oil seeds such as sesame, niger and safflower seeds as high-priority export crops and ranks

the second biggest export earner.

In Southern Ethiopia, sesame is cultivated in some parts of the country occupies about 6,365.7 hectares of

land annually with estimated production of 31,650 quintals (CSA, 2014/2015). The National (6.87qt/ha) and

regional (4.97 qt/ha) average yield of sesame has remained low (CSA, 2014/2015).

Despite the fact sesame has superior economical potential in local consumptions and export demand, the

average productivity is low as compared to other oilseeds, due to the complex constraints such as; the limited

cultivation of improved varieties was due to insufficient variety information, poor agronomic practices, biotic and

abiotic factors. Therefore, improved varieties as well as agronomic practice of sesame production will help the

farmers to utilize full package that would increase sesame production in South region. Even though, some efforts

have been made to demonstrate and popularize crop varieties through demonstration in South Ethiopia, the farmers’

selection criteria for sesame varieties were not adequately assessed and well documented especially in the southern

region of Ethiopia. The farmers have little experience with demonstration of improved varieties.

Therefore, this experiment was conducted to improve farmers’ production and productivity of sesame through

participatory selection, in selected district of Southern regional state.Keeping this in view, field experiments were

conducted with objectives to evaluate the performance of sesame varieties and to identify farmers’ preference and

selection criteria in the study site

Materials and Methods

Grandmother trial:

In the present investigation six sesame varieties including local check were evaluated in 2016/2017 at konta

districts in Ethiopia (Table 1). Both grandmother and mother trials were laid at farmers’ field/FTC of Konta, konta

koysha kebele (06043’, 030’’N, 036034’350’’E) lies at 969.7 meters above sea level. In this district, three farmers

were identified to lay out the mother trials and FTC farm were used for grandmother trials. The trials were designed



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by the researcher but laid and all cultural operations including planting, weeding and harvesting was managed by

the selected farmers.

Table 1. List of sesame varieties tested.

No Name of variety

1 Setiti-1

2 Humera

3 Mehado-80

4 Local

5 Tate

6 Abasena

The experiments were laid out in randomized block design with 3 replications. Each variety was grown with

a plot size of 9.6 m2 represented by 6 rows of 4 meter length with inter- and intra-row spacing of 40 cm and 10

cm, respectively. Recommended fertilizer rate and cultural practices were done. Parameters such as grain yield

and farmers preferences data were collected for the sesame varieties.

Farmers' Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS): Participatory varietal selections were conducted using

participatory tools (direct matrix and pair-wise rankings). Farmers’ selection was done based primarily on their

sesame growing experience and willingness to participate in the research. Farmers were invited to the FTC and

model farmer field to evaluate the sesame varieties at flowering and at maturity stages before harvest, assisted by

researchers and technical assistants from Areka Research Centre and Extension staffs from the Konta district

Agriculture and Natural Resource development offices. A total of 23 stakeholders (farmers; extension staff) of

both sexes (male=19, female=4) participated in the study. Out of the 23 participants at districts/field 4 were women

(17.3%). At the beginning of the evaluation farmers gathered to discuss what they thought were the important

criteria for selecting a given variety at a particular development stage.

A direct matrix table was prepared for the evaluated genotypes listed in the row and traits preferred by farmers

listed in the column. Farmers discussed and all these criteria were ranked in the order from 1 to 5 (5 = very good,

4 = good, 3 = average, 2 = poor and 1 = very poor) according to their importance by each farmer for selecting a

new variety characteristic with highest rank is considered to be the most important while the one with smaller rank

is perceived to be less important in choosing a new variety. Likewise, during direct matrix ranking, farmers have

given rating of importance (a relative weight) of a selection criterion ranked from 1 to 3 (3= very important, 2=

important and 1= less important) and rating of performance of a variety for each trait of interest was given based

on their level of importance on the basis of common agreement of evaluators. The score of each variety was

multiplied by the relative weight of a given character to get the final result and then added to the results of other

characters to determine the total score of a given variety. These criteria were ranked and top ones were used.

Farmers were also asked to give an overall assessment of tested varieties and select two to three varieties that they

would like to grown in their sesame field. In addition to farmers’ evaluation, an agronomical evaluation was

conducted and grain yield data were collected and subjected for analysis of variance using SAS software, version

9.2.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The analysis of variance (Table 2) showed highly significant differences (P≤0.01) among sesame varieties for

grain yield at Konta district. Researchers’ evaluated the varieties based on grain yield and ANOVA result indicated

that there was significant difference among the sesame varieties. As it is indicated in Table 2 Setiti-1 has the

highest grain yield 783.5 kg ha-1, but local check (542.75 kg/ha) was a variety with comparatively low grain yield.

In other words, the analysis result for the trial showed that there was significant difference among the varieties for

grain yield at Konta in 2016/2017(Table 2).

Table. 2. Analysis of variance for grain yield (kg) of sesame grandmother trails at konta

Varieties Grain yield (kg/ha) Researchers Rank Farmers rank

Setiti-1 783.50a 1 1

Humera 713.00ab 3 2

Mehado-80 708.00ab 4 6

Local 542.75c 6 5

Tate 695.25b 5 4

Abasena 756.25ab 2 3

G.mean 699.791

LSD(0.05) 86.372

CV 8.18929

Farmers evaluation result: The farmers who participated and evaluated in the trial were representative to the

area. The evaluators were most interested in some of the parameters like stand strength (lodging resistance),



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number of capsule per plant, plant height, disease resistance, shattering resistance, early maturity, seed color and

grain yield. At flowering and maturity stages, the farmers evaluated grandmother and mother trials at Konta,

generally farmers responded positively to the sesame varieties they have evaluated. In the grandmother trial

farmers' assessment indicated that there was a matching result with researchers analysis result (Table 2). In other

words, the results also showed that farmers are eager to participate in selecting improved varieties and in present

experiment their selection is match with that of researchers. Farmers’ pairwise and direct matrix ranking

evaluation indicate that variety setiti, Humera,,Abasena, Local, Tate and Mehado-80 were selected by farmers as

1st ,2nd ,3rd ,4th rank, 5th and 6th during field evaluation (Table 4 & 5 ).

Picture 1: Field view and farmers’ evaluation of sesame varieties at konta district during 2016/17

Table 3: Pairwise ranking of farmers’ selection criteria of sesame varieties in konta district

No SLC SS NC/PT PH DR CL SR EM SC GY Total Rank

1 SS * NC/PT SS DR SS SR EM SS GY 3 6th

2 NC/PT * NC/PT NC/PT NC/PT NC/PT EM SC GY 5 4th

3 PH * DR CL SR EM SC GY 0 8th

4 DR * DR DR EM SC GY 3 6th

5 CL * SR EM SC GY 1 7th

6 SR * SR SC GY 4 5th

7 EM * EM GY 7 2nd

8 SC * GY 6 3rd

9 GY * 9 1st

Where, SLC=selection criteria, SS = Stand strength, NC /PT= Number of capsule per plant, PH= Plant height CL=

Capsule length DR= Diseases resistance SR= Shattering resistance EM = Early Maturity SC= Seed color and GY=

Grain yield

Accordingly, the preferred sesame variety should have high grain yield, earliness, white seed color, number

of capsule per plant and better resistance to blight diseases. Besides grain yield and earliness, farmers most



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preferred white seed color of sesame varieties which are expected to give high market prices. Pair-wise matrix

ranking was used to identify the prioritization order of the farmers’ selection criteria (Table 3). In this study,

farmers gave the highest weight to grain yield followed by earliness and seed color. This has been reported for

several crops such as maize (Tadesse et al., 2014), common bean (Balicha and Tigabu, 2015), faba bean (Mulualem

et al., 2012) and sorghum (Muui et al., 2013).Likewise, disease resistance, shattering resistance and stand strength

were also selected by farmers’ as moderate significance. Similarly, the importance of seed color for wheat

(Workineh et al., 2014), maize (Tadesse et al., 2014), common bean (Balicha and Tigabu, 2015), finger millet

(Fentie Molla, 2010) and sorghum (Muui et al., 2013) have also been reported in previous studies as being farmers

important selection criteria.

Table 4: Direct matrix ranking evaluation of sesame varieties by of group of farmers (n=23 (male=19; Female=4

and their assessment in konta district, ranked in order of importance

Selection

Criteria set by

farmers

Sesame varieties

SS NC/PT PH DR CL SR EM SC GY Total

score

Rank

Relative weight 3 3 2 2 1 1 3 3 3 - -

Setiti-1 15(3) 9(3) 2(2) 10(5) 5(5) 4(4) 15(5) 15(5) 15(5) 90 1

Humera 9(3) 15(5) 10(5) 10(5) 5(5) 4(4) 12(4) 9(3) 12(4) 86 2

Tate 6(2) 6(2) 8(4) 4(2) 4(4) 4(4) 6(2) 6(2) 15(5) 59 4

Mehado-80 3(1) 6(2) 8(4) 4(2) 4(4) 4(4) 6(2) 9(3) 12(4) 56 5

Abasena 9(3) 15(5) 10(5) 10(5) 5(5) 4(4) 12(4) 9(3) 12(4) 86 2

Local 6(2) 6(2) 8(4) 4(2) 4(4) 3(3) 12(4) 12(4) 12(4) 67 3

NB: ''5'' means very good and "1 means very poor; numbers in parenthesis indicated the performance rating value

of each variety given from 1-5 (5= very good, 4= good,, 3= average, 2= poor and 1=very poor) and numbers written

in the bold indicate total score of a variety as per each selection criteria, which was obtained by multiplying the

relative weight of each selection criteria with that of the performance rating number in the parenthesis. Where, SS

= stand strength, NC /PT= Number of capsule per plant, PH= plant height CL= Capsule length DR= Diseases

resistance SR= Shattering resistance EM = Early Maturity SC= Seed colour and GY= Grain yield

Table 5: Farmers pair-wise ranking of evaluated sesame varieties during 2016/2017 cropping season at konta

district

Varieties Setiti-1 Humera Tate Mehado-80 Abasena Local Score Rank

Setiti-1 * 5 1

Humera Setiti-1 * 4 2

Tate Setiti-1 Humera * 2 4

Mehado-80 Setiti-1 Humera Tate * 0 6

Abasena Setiti-1 Humera Abasena Abasena * 3 3

Local Setiti-1 Humera Tate Local Abasena * 1 5

Based on the direct matrix rankings, the total score (the product of relative weight of each criterion by the

relative importance) of the evaluation by farmers ranged from 56 to 90. The highest score was given to Setiti-1

(90) followed by Abasena and Humera both scored 86 and ranked second together ; whereas the least score given

to Mehado-80 (56) due to its poor stem strength and susceptibility to blight diseases. Moreover, pair-wise ranking

evaluation provides opportunities to farmers to see in detail the merits and demerits of each variety by comparing

and contrasting pair varieties at a time. According to pair-wise ranking the variety setiti-1 preferred five times and

ranked first followed by Humera and Abasena preferred four and three times and ranked second and

third ,respectively. Therefore, based on the results of field experiment and farmers’ evaluation the varieties Setiti-

1,Humera and Abasena were the most preferred ones.

Conclusion

The most preferred varieties identified by the focus group discussion through PVS were Setiti-1, Abasena, and

Humera. The analysis of variance showed highly significant differences (P≤0.01) among sesame varieties for grain

yield at Konta district. The result of present study indicated that varieties Setiti-1, Humera and Abasena are the

three best varieties for the test agro ecology. In this trial the rank given by researchers match with farmers rank.

That means most of the studied varieties selected by farmers’ based on their own selection criteria and researcher

analysis had the same result. Thus, these varieties are found to be well adapted and promising to the test district in

both the researcher’s and farmers will be demonstrated and popularized to the small-scale holder farmers.

Recommendations

For results from this preliminary study to transform in to improved food and income security, we need to carry



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out:

• Promotion of three sesame varieties in sesame trial areas with full package(seed rate,fertilier rate and

weeding frequency)

• Development of seed multiplication and dissemination protocol to make seeds of three varieties

sustainability accessible to farmers, investors and seed growers

• Promotion of good agricultural practices in sesame production

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participatory variety selection for enhanced promotion of

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